I can think of no better way to remove myself from the weighty responsibilities of domestic chores than by reading. But not just any book. As I mature in years, my taste for literature has become more particular; I’m as finicky as my four-year-old who snorts, sniffs, and closely inspects everything he eats before consumption. These are the hectic days of my life when time is the great scarcity of my existence. So, when I delve into a story, I want all the elements of the craft of fiction to leap off the page, the least of which include an intriguing plot, a transcendental setting, wittydialogue, smooth exposition, gorgeous language and true enlightenment.

Am I asking for too much? Maybe. But it occurred to me recently I am entrusting my essence and my mind to a storyteller for hours, days, years even (Beloved still rests on my nightstand), to say nothing of the precious commodity of money, so all I ask in exchange for my investment is the aforementioned qualities and a descent serving of wit and good humor.

A mother of three active boys whose activities dominate most of my waking hours, I rarely get the opportunity to feed my starving mind books high in sustenance; and when I do, it’s hard to digest over the pandemonium of roaming toddlers and an eight-year old, who from time to time seeks solace and exile in adult companionship. When such moments occur, I put my book aside and ask him to read to me. And so begins the tale of Charlotte’s Web which sends me soaring back in time to my third grade year, to those mellow, worry-free days of my youth when I escaped to my room and indulged in pages of imaginative literature.

This satisfies me for a spell, then my hunger returns for meaty, high caloric prose. But when can I partake? Perhaps, this is the reason I have almost limited my reading list to authors who have obtained immortality through their works. Those slow but sure-footed writers I can see with my mind’s eye, holding a stylus in hand, pumping out their muse with gusto, pouring out their heart and soul for generations to come. Writers and poets not subject to today’s conditions of publication: book length, political ramifications, editorial tweaking for marketing purposes, and stringent deadlines. Those first-time authors who had nothing to lose when they wrote Jubilee, Invisible Man and To Kill a Mockingbird. And let us not forget the poets: Phyllis Wheatley, Paul Lawrence Dunbar, Langston Hughes...ahh, the brilliant minds of their day.

I guess for me it’s real simple. I want to be entertained and enlightened, as I should be, at least for a little while, before the chorus of three little boys sing, “Mommy, is our dinner ready yet?”

Later, after an exhaustive dinner, a Kool-aid spill or two, a plate of spaghetti tumbles to the floor and a series of frenzied bubble baths, when the house is as quiet as an anthill and I’ve punched my ‘mommy’ time clock for the night, I crawl in bed, and the song of my central nervous system is a low hum, droning, “Does anyone have a good book?”

But not just any book.

Author: Juanita G. McDowell

Originally posted on: CharlotteMommies